CLASS DESCRIPTIONS ... April, 2024 
 

 EXTENDED CLASSES: Thursday (4/18) and Friday (4/19) - 5 hours each day - 10 total hours
Mini sessions on Saturday (4/20)

MOUNTAIN DULCIMER HAMMERED DULCIMER

INTERMEDIATE/ADVANCED 

LINDA BROCKINTON 

Intensive Course Description, Thursday & Friday (10 hours)

 

Thursday - Celtic and Original Tunes:

Music comes from many countries and many hearts.. As you all know  
I am a fingerpicker however flatpickers and even strummers are welcome. 

Within each piece are many tools you will be able to take home such as, Hammer Ons, Pull offs, "do lalies, chords and shapes.

The music will be a mixture of fast and slow.  We will work on how to play smoothly not choppy while making the most efficient way to get up and down the fret board. Some will be challenging but don't be scared... THATS what makes us better. 
 

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Friday:  Today we will play some Hymns and old time music.

The tunes will be a little slower.  We will gather some more tools for you to take home.. I will spend some time on Performing as well.
 

Playing hymns at church etc. This involves learning to read the music as it will tell you when to speed up and slow down and when to get quieter or louder etc. 

I look forward to seeing you all in April!

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ZOOM OPTION:  Linda's 10 hours of extended instruction will be
offered as a Zoom option for those folks who cannot attend in person.  The Zoom feed will be monitored by BDF staff who will be sure that any questions are answered. 

Zoom Registration form

 

 

INTERMEDIATE/ADVANCED 

DEE DEE TIBBITS

Intensive Course Description, Thursday & Friday (10 hours)

We are thrilled that Dee Dee will be joining us in kicking off the next years of the Buckeye Dulcimer Festival.  She will bring a fine variety of repertoire with technique featured in each one.  Your 10 hours with Dee Dee will move quickly.  She knows how to keep interest and yet provide time to build skills.  

At Buckeye 2024, the extended hammered dulcimer class has lots of musical adventures in store -- SOLO arrangements -- including 2-handed separation, mini workshops on DRONES and VAMPS, 2 beautiful DUET arrangements of IRISH FOLK TUNES, and several fun ENSEMBLE PIECES for many players which can include other instruments!  Don't miss this wonderful opportunity to learn LOTS of 'stuff' while spending time with other dulcimer lovers!!

Learn more about Dee Dee at her website:
https://deedeetibbits.com/

ZOOM OPTION:  DeeDee's 10 hours of extended instruction will be offered as a Zoom option for those folks who cannot attend in person. 
The Zoom feed will be monitored by BDF staff who will be sure that any questions are answered. 

Zoom Registration form


 Hear Dee Dee Talk about Buckeye!

 

Past Beginners/Early Intermediate

MOLLY MCCORMACK

Intensive Course Description, Thursday & Friday (10 hours)

 

Now that you have practiced the basics of playing the mountain dulcimer, are you wondering what’s next?

In this class, we’ll be in D-A-d tuning and you will expand your playing skills while having fun learning a variety of new tunes.

You’ll strengthen your strumming and picking skills, explore backup chord positions and optimal fingering.

You’ll practice how to hear melodies and chord changes, so you can join in jams and you’ll learn ways to accompany singers.

Most of all you’ll experience the joy of playing sweet music for yourself and with others. 

www.mollymccormack.com


 
 

Past Beginners/Early Intermediate

      CHRIS STEINER       

Intensive
Course Description, Thursday & Friday (10 hours)

In this class, we will have a little refresher of what you learned as a beginner to make sure we are all on the same page, and then we will build on that.  We will learn a few new tunes by learning to recognize and memorize patterns.  You don’t need to know how to read music in this class… we will play a lot by “follow the leader”. 

You will learn how to embellish those simple tunes by using block chords, arpeggios, and drones and experiment with coming up with your own embellishments. Because the secret to embellishment is chords, we will work a lot with chords – learning a very simple pattern that will give you beautiful major and minor chord arpeggios in any key.  With every tune, we will learn to identify the chords behind the notes so that we can play appropriate embellishments

 

New Players/Beginners

Diane Hochstetler

 

New Players/Beginners

Melanie Shapiro

This class will be an introduction to the hammered dulcimer for those who have little or no previous experience with the instrument, starting from “string side up”!    We’ll cover basics such as the layout of the dulcimer and finding your way around all those strings.  We’ll also learn how to hold your hammers and strategies for determining efficient hammering patterns.  Of course, no introduction would be complete without discussing tuning the beast(!), so we’ll cover that as well. 

We’ll explore these topics while learning some of the most common jam tunes in the Buckeye Roadshow tune list.
 

AUTOHARP

LES GUSTAFSON-ZOOK

Intensive Course Description - Thursday & Friday  (10 hours)  Beyond Beginners

 

Next Steps - Moving from Strumming to Taking Leads -

Using a variety of musical styles, we’ll form the building blocks needed for finding the melody notes in a song and picking them out cleanly.

Along the way, we’ll explore rhythmic strums that match the mood of the music - from dances to classics - that can add musicality to our playing.

Bring a chromatic autoharp (21 chord if possible) and join in the fun of making music together! 

If you have any questions, please email Les at  les@gustafsonzook.com 

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ZOOM OPTION:  Les' 10 hours of extended instruction will be offered as a Zoom option for those folks who cannot attend in person.  The Zoom feed will be monitored by BDF staff who will be sure that any questions are answered. 

Zoom Registration form

 

CLAWHAMMER BANJO

JOE STEINER
                                   
Intensive
Course Description - Thursday & Friday (10 hours)
Beyond Beginners
 

Tailored to folks who have a little experience with the banjo or are comfortable with another musical instrument.  If you have never played the clawhammer banjo, but play other acoustic instruments, feel free to email Joe for this thoughts.    banjo_one@yahoo.com 

This class will focus on the old timey sound. We’ll play various old-time tunes and songs, using them to build and refine a good clawhammer stroke. Along the way, we will look at techniques to help quickly learn tunes and songs, so as to minimize reliance on written tablature.

We’ll also analyze how to use various rhythmic, melodic, and harmonic embellishments, and study the effects they have on the sound. As we analyze techniques, we'll discuss how we can use them on the fly to improvise variations on tunes and songs.

We'll explore different variations of the pieces we are looking at, so the more experienced members of the class will be able to explore advanced techniques while playing along with the less experienced.

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ZOOM OPTION:  Joe's 10 hours of extended instruction will be offered as a Zoom option for those folks who cannot attend in person.  The Zoom feed will be monitored by BDF staff who will be sure that any questions are answered. 

Zoom Registration form

 

MEET JOE!

 

 

From Buckeye Open Stage a few years ago,
here's Joe's banjo class playing CLUCK OLD HEN.

 

BAND ~ IT! (multi-instrument class - beyond beginner players) 10 hours  - (Thursday and Friday) -  SHARI WOLF 

What is this Band-it! class all about?  

In joining the band, you'll find a group eager to explore working with familiar jam tunes that take on a new interest when arranged with a plan rather than playing them a few times and then on to the next.   We'll work on instrumentals (fiddle tunes, waltzes, hymns) and we'll explore singing of variety of traditional music. 

Next, I'll introduce some new tunes that we can learn from scratch and learn them with new ideas of arranging in the mix.
In the past, Band-it! has learned and arranged Kerry Polka, Johnny Armstrong, Skye Boat Song (before it became popular) and some good old time and Irish tunes.

You'll gain information on starting the tune, ending the tune, switching leads, turn arounds, and vamps.  We'll work on these things focused on instrumentals and vocals.   We'll start playing in the key of D and go from there.

Please bring any instruments that you would like to play to contribute to our band sound. 

Instruments that have participated in previous BAND-It! classes include:  pennywhistle, autoharp, recorder, bowed psaltry, banjo, fiddle, bodhran, mountain dulcimer, hammered dulcimer, ukulele, banjo uke, guitar, upright bass, marimbula, spoons, bones and probably more.

IF YOU ARE LOOKING FOR A JAMMING CLASS, THIS IS NOT IT!  
Yes, we'll be playing lots of songs and tunes some of which you will know and some that you won't.  
This class is about taking music and making it your own!

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This workshop could be compared to putting the pieces of a puzzle together.  The goal is to take players of various playing levels beyond the beginner level, playing a variety of acoustic instruments, familiar with a wide variety of music and blend and mold all of us into a BAND.  

GOAL #1:  We'll start with common songs and tunes that are familiar to all and work on arranging them with the following
in mind. 
The goal is to take several familiar 'club' tunes/songs and create an arrangement that makes them sound a bit different each time through.

1)  Discover different ways to start and end a song/tune.
2)  Look at different ways to vary the song/tune each time through.
3)  Working with bringing out the different voices of the instruments.
4)  Working on vocals and balancing the sound between singing and instrument backup.
5)  Discovering backup techniques for all instruments through chords and rhythms.

GOAL #2:  Take a piece of tablature which includes dulcimer tab, music notation, and chords to create a complete arrangement involving all instruments in the band.

1)  We'll explore different places to play the melody.
2)  Where to play chords to get different voices.
3)  Develop simple harmonies by using chords.
4)  Vary the arrangement.

My plan is to work with 4/4, 3/4, and maybe 6/8 timing. 

If you have any questions, email Shari .

We'll just let classes from 2016 and 2017 give you an idea of where we're headed.  

BDF 2016, the Band-It! class performing a medley of
Johnny Armstrong
and Whiskey Before Breakfast.

 

BDF Band-it! Class (2017)     
Skye Boat Song

 

 


 

 

 

SATURDAY NEW PLAYER/BEGINNER SESSIONS ... Class Descriptions
 

SATURDAY BEGINNER INSTRUCTORS

Autoharp

Hammered Dulcimer

Mountain Dulcimer

PHYLLIS DAVIS
(Urbana, Oh) 

On Saturday, Phyllis will be helping folks get started on the right track by teaching 5 hours of New Player/Beginner autoharp.
 

MELANIE SHAPIRO
(Columbus, OH)

 

SHANE BRADEN
(Englewood, OH)

 

 

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Last updated:  March 2, 2024

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